Welcome, dear readers, to the story of The Barrow Bookstore, a unique shop featuring rare and gently-read books down the lane at 79 Main Street, Concord, Massachusetts. For 54 years, the Barrow has been owned by three generations of women whose passion for history and literature personify Louisa May Alcott’s quote, “She is too fond of books and it has turned her brain.”
How do you remember heroic souls who have died? In the second century, Greek astronomer Ptolemy did so by taking the memories of those who (to paraphrase Ralph Waldo Emerson) had “shuffled off their corporeal jackets” and slipped them into the stars. Ptolemy named stars and connected them with invisible lines to form the storied constellations known to many in the past and today.
There are some tales that have so seeped into a place that it is best to leave them be or risk upsetting the spirits who dwell within. But sometimes, even if you mind your own realm, the spirits come out and find you.
They were the sons of Death and hell followed with them as they rushed from Sudbury to Concord, Massachusetts, in the lightening dawn of April 19, 1775. Beside them, armed with muskets, swords, pitchforks, and improvised weapons, came two companies of Sudbury minutemen and militia, and behind them (as legend says),
on a white horse, a messenger galloped
west towards Worcester carrying the alarm
“Up! Up! The Regulars are as far as Concord!”
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